Membership Information

Admission to The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is by invitation only and requires nomination and approval by a chapter in accordance with the bylaws of both the chapter and the national organization. Both require superior scholarship and good character as criteria for membership. The conditions set forth in the Society's Bylaws may be summarized as follows:

Undergraduates
Undergraduate students may be considered who have senior status and are scholastically in the upper ten percent of their class or who have reached the final period of their junior year and are scholastically in the upper five percent of their class (a chapter's bylaws may stipulate lower percentages for both). In no case, may the total number of undergraduates elected in one year exceed ten percent of the candidates for graduation in that year.

Graduates
Graduate students may be elected, but their number must not exceed ten percent of the number of candidates for graduate degrees during the year.

Facultyand alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction may be elected to membership in limited number. Honorary or distinguished members may be elected by a chapter with the approval of the Board of Directors.

Awards and Scholarships

The Phi Kappa Phi Foundation was incorporated in 1969 to allow the society to receive tax exempt gifts for the support of awards and scholarships designed to honor, motivate, and educate its members. The following are brief descriptions of the society's national awards and scholarships programs:

To support first year graduate work, the Society offers annually 50 Fellowshipsof up to $7,000 each and 30 Awards of Excellence of $1,000 each, on a competitive basis, to students for first year graduate study. Every chapter has the opportunity to submit one nominee, and each person nominated receives an Active-Four-Life membership in the society.

Presented every three years, the National Scholar Award and the National Artist Award are designed to honor those individuals who demonstrate the ideals of the Society through their activities, achievements, and scholarship. Awardees receive a plaque, a $2,500 honorarium, and Active-Four-Life membership, and the opportunity to present their work at the National Convention.

The Society's newest national awards effort is the Promotion of Excellence Grant Program, designed to support projects and activates that actively promote academic excellence and are broad in scope. Promotion of Excellence Grants may be given either to support and expand worthy existing projects or to initiate new worthy programs. The Society will inaugurate the National Promotion of Excellence Grants Program by funding several $10,000 or less Promotion of Excellence Grants prior to the close of the 1998-2001 triennium.

Additionally, $150,000 in chapter scholarships and awards are distributed each year.

ΦKΦ Symbols

The Phi Kappa Phi Key consists of the badge - a globe against the background of the sun, whose rays form an expansive corona and radiate in a number of symmetrical concentrations from behind the globe. These rays signify equivalence among the various branches of leaning and represent the dissemination of truth as light. Encircling the globe is a band containing the Greek letters ФΚФ that symbolizes a fraternal bond that girds the earth and binds the lovers of wisdom in a common purpose.

The Phi Kappa Phi ribbon is a meander pattern, common in ancient Greek art and symbolic of the classical features of the Society.

The seal of the Society has at its center the badge. This in turn is surrounded by a crenellated line that represents the battlements and walls of Troy as well as a technological aspect of the ancient Greek culture. In the space between this line and the periphery of the seal appear three stars just above the badge, one for each of the three original chapters. Just below the badge is the phrase "Founded in 1897."

About Villanova

Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges.